“Big Sur is the California that men dreamed of years ago, this is the Pacific that Balboa looked at from the Peak of Darien, this is the face of the earth as the Creator intended it to look.” – Henry Miller

On our way from Southern California to Seattle, we drove Highway 1 for the majority of our journey. Our first stop was Los Osos (near San Luis Obispo) where my friend Katerina lives in a cute little house near the bay. Katerina, a friend of mine since the first grade, has been bugging me to visit her ever since she moved up there, and I finally did. And to be honest, I kinda fell in love with the place. We spent the evening at the Firestone Grill in downtown San Luis Obispo watching college football, drinking multiple pints of Firestone ale, and eating BBQ that rivals anything you can find in Texas.

The next morning, our bellies full of blueberry pancakes (seriously, Katerina is an amazing cook), we set off for our next destination, San Francisco. We would be taking Highway 1 all the way there, through Big Sur, Monterey, and Santa Cruz. While this route is much longer than the more direct US-101, the extra hours spent driving along the unspoiled coast are well worth it. Big Sur, a 90-mile stretch of highway in Central California, remains one of my favorite places in California, its beauty unmatched by any other.

Below are some photos I took from that drive.

Elephant seals relaxing on the beach

Surfers

Although I’m a Southern California native, I’ve always thought Northern California, and specifically the Bay Area, is the better place to live (despite the incredibly high cost of living, of course). Visiting San Francisco can be quite expensive as well, but if you know where to look, you can find some inexpensive lodging and dining options. Roomstays.com, for example, is an online booking assistant for hotel properties that has some great deals on hotels in San Francisco, including the Parc 55 Wyndham and Westin St. Francis, both conveniently located in Union Square.

Once you’ve made it to San Francisco, be sure to check out the top five activities to do in San Francisco. I highly recommend the tour of Alcatraz, and afterward, ordering a sourdough bread bowl full of steaming hot clam chowder at Fisherman’s Wharf. If you are looking for an excellent cup of coffee, try Blue Bottle at the nearby Ferry Building. For dinner, check out an authentic Chinese restaurant in Chinatown (note: if the menu is in Chinese, and the restaurant is full of locals, eat there).

There are a variety of tour companies in San Francisco, but it is an easy enough city to navigate that you can go without one. Public transportation is quite easy around San Francisco, and pay parking is plentiful, albeit expensive, if you insist on driving.

Photos from last month’s West Coast road trip. Over 1,400 miles up the coast from San Diego, CA to Vancouver, BC.

Despite living only two hours away from Los Angeles for the first eighteen years of my life, I had never visited the La Brea Tar Pits until December 2005, after I had returned to SoCal from grad school. The tar pits were actually pretty interesting, and I loved the fake statues that they placed in the pits.

Forget Ben’s Chili Bowl, Pink’s Hot Dogs is where it’s at. Founded in 1939, Pink’s has been serving hot dogs to hungry Angelenos since. The line is always long, which is fine, because that gives you plenty of time to peruse their extensive menu. This photo was taken during my first trip to Pink’s back in 2005. I opted for the “Ozzy Osbourne” dog (Spicy Polish dog, nacho cheese, American cheese, grilled onions, guacamole & chopped tomatoes) and onion rings, while my friend Ryan chose the Ozzy dog and “Guadalajara” dog (relish, onions, tomatoes, topped with sour cream). The onion rings are pretty damn good, too. Start looking for some Los Angeles flights so you can try this place for yourself.

If all goes as planned, I’ll be on a 6am flight to Dallas and then hopping a plane to Palm Springs, arriving by late morning (while cheap flights to Los Angeles and Ontario abound, this is one of the occasions where I actually have to get into Palm Springs on time!) so that I can sit down to a lovely Thanksgiving meal with friends and family. The above photo, taken during an early morning hike several years ago, is of Palm Desert and the Coachella Valley, where I grew up and lived until 2000.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American readers!

The Black Angus Steakhouse in Rancho Mirage is closing. Not that I’m really torn up about it, as I have not been there in probably ten years or so, but we used to go there a lot when I was a kid. I think my grandma really liked that place. Anyways, during one of our family excursions to Black Angus, the waiter asked me (at the time I was probably in kindergarten or thereabouts) what I wanted for dinner.

Well, I wanted one of my favorite meals, and something I always ordered at Black Angus.
“Bones!” I replied.
The waiter, of course, was absolutely puzzled. “Bones?”
“I want bones!”

Finally, my mom interpreted my order for the poor guy: “She’ll have the baby back ribs.”

BONES

And yes, I still get teased about that.

I can hardly believe it myself. It’s been almost ten years since we graduated from high school. Ten years since we “acquired” several orange traffic cones.

Godspeed, orange traffic cone. Enjoy your freedom.

Via the Desert Sun:

Supporters of the voter-approved gay marriage ban are suing the secretary of state’s office and various state and local offices across California in federal court, alleging that the state’s campaign disclosure law violates their rights to privacy.

The suit contends that many on either side of the gay marriage debate have received significant “harassment and threats” as a result of the state’s Political Reform Act, which requires political donors who contributed $100 or more to a political campaign to give their names and addresses.

That personal information is then included in public documents filed with the California Secretary of State’s Office.

WAAAAA! Welcome to politics, newbs. I’m guessing that for many of the Yes on Prop 8 donors, this was their first time making a contribution to a political campaign and they were unaware that their donations would be public record. So now they are upset that people are boycotting their businesses. Sorry, but I’ve got no sympathy for them losing business because of this.

If you want to find out which of your neighbors donated to Yes on Prop 8, check out this Google map (thanks, Ryan). There are actually a few people I know on there who donated. Lame.

Sounds like fun. And you probably get a ton of free avocados!:

Luxury suites. Shopping sprees. Four-star hotels. Such was life in the high-flying world of the California Avocado Commission.

That, at least, is the image presented by a blistering report released last week by the California Department of Food and Agriculture, which painted the commission, a state-established trade group financed by growers, as a kind of free-spending, avocado-gone-wild farm party.

Indeed, even as the state’s avocado farmers suffer through one of their worst slumps in memory, the audit showed that commission employees were buying season tickets for the Los Angeles Angels and hockey’s Mighty Ducks; getting paid gym memberships, complete with stipends for vitamins and workout clothes; and running up large clothing bills.